(or "Get out of your yard and see what else is in the world!")
My generous friend, Autumn, calls me. My cinephile friend.
- What are you doing?
- Uhhhh... I was buying socks for the boys.
- Okay! Are you coming to a movie at 6:30 PM?
- At 6:30 PM??? Today? (I look at my phone again.) It's 5:45 PM...
- Yes.
- What movie?
-Forgiveness. A film by Mr. Mărgineanu.
My first thought is that I'm not dressed for the cinema. My second is that dinner is only half-prepared. I hesitate a bit.
- What is it about?
- It's... from the Paterikon!
- Okay, I'm coming!
I forgot about the socks, about the dinner I was planning to diversify, about the fact that I was with two of the children, their scooter and bike tethered near the store. I couldn't refuse her this time. After I accepted, everything fell into place. Both picking up the children and arriving on time. And it no longer mattered that I didn't have a more suitable skirt on. At one point, I don't remember when, it crossed my mind that it was a gift from Saint Silouan, as it was precisely his feast day. Could the theme really be coincidental? Today the call for forgiveness resonated in my mind all day... I had no idea what it would be about, but Autumn warned me to have tissues at hand.
It begins. Communist Romania. A man with insomnia, a man awakened by conscience. Twenty years prior, he had been a guard in Aiud prison, where he had tortured a priest. Now retired, awaiting his first grandchild, he can no longer find peace, becomes an alcoholic, is on the verge of madness. His wife, a faithful woman, suggests he confess. "I haven't been to church since childhood... And, out of 50,000 priests in this country, only one can grant me forgiveness." It doesn't work; he knows that only if he finds the man he ruined long ago will he heal... And so he begins to search for him.
That's how Saint Silouan transformed me from a rooster into an eagle for 100 minutes! (It's the first scene from the comic book about the life of Saint Silouan, a book much loved by our family.) It was as if he had said to me: "You've grown weak again! Get out of your yard and see what else is in the world! Forget your cross for a bit, others have it much heavier!" I forgot about socks, about setting and clearing the table, about the squabbles inherent to any evening, and I immersed myself in experiencing the suffering of an entire Adam, of an entire world, which, despite wallowing in sin, is never forgotten by the Lord. An unfathomable mystery...
The film helped me remember the cruel terrors of communist prisons and to realize once again that God constantly sends each of us lifeboats, regardless of whether we are torturers or victims... The seed of returning Home is planted in every person. What remains for us is repentance and the search for forgiveness. We will all find, like the guard Valeriu Tănase, the path to it, sooner or later, depending on how we hear the call...
Georgiana Camalessa